1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a communication processing device, and more particularly, to a communication processing device included in a booth computer of a toll collecting system for communicating with a lane controller installed in each lane, collecting materials for the traffic of vehicles in each lane, and transferring information required for operating the lane controller such as a toll table, a basic item table, and a void credit, void exemption, and void discount card table.
2. Related Art
Contemporary toll collecting systems for toll collection of vehicles on toll roads such as expressways may be classified as a closed type or an open type of system according to a particular management pattern. A closed type toll collecting system relates to toll collection of a vehicle at the toll gate where the value of the toll is determined according to the type of vehicle and the distance traveled along the road. An open type toll collecting system relates to toll collection determined according to only the type of the vehicle.
On toll roads for vehicles on which the toll depends upon the distance traveled along the road of traditional closed type toll collecting systems such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,705,976 for Revenue Control System For Toll Roads issued to Platzman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,618 for Method And Means For Collecting Highway Tolls issued to Riskin, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,824 for Method Of Replacing A Tolling System For Toll Roads issued to Kiyama et al., the collection of tolls requires an attendant at each toll gate of the toll road. Usually when a vehicle is about to enter a toll road, the driver of the vehicle must stop at an entrance toll gate to pick up a ticket for toll collection upon exit. Sometimes, an attendant is required at the toll gate to input information relating to the type of vehicle into a ticket machine for ticket issuance which the attendant hands to the driver. Typically the ticket may be a magnetic recorded pass or contains punched holes in which information such as the date, the toll gate number, and the type of vehicle is encoded. Upon receipt of the ticket, the driver can enter the toll road with his vehicle.
When the driver wishes to exit from the toll road, he or she must stop at an exit toll gate and hand the ticket to an attendant at the toll gate. The attendant then inserts the ticket into a card reader which deciphers the information encoded in the punched holes of the ticket or reads the magnetic strip for toll calculation. The attendant must manually collect the toll from the driver of the vehicle before the driver can exit from the toll road. Since the toll collecting process requires human attendants, the time required to collect the toll for each vehicle is extremely exhaustive, costly and 5 frequently causes traffic backups on the toll road near the entrances and exits. The traffic jams in turn cause pollution because of the amount of carbon monoxide that is produced, and the amount of fuel that is consumed by thousands and thousands of vehicles that must come to a full stop, stop and go, and then accelerate for the duration.
In recent years, electronics have been used for more cost efficient and reliable toll collections such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,520 for Automatic Real-Time Highway Toll Collection From Moving Vehicles issued to Chaum et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,554,984 for Electronic Traffic Tariff Reception System And Vehicle Identification Apparatus issued to Shigenaga et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,375 for Automatic Debiting System Suitable For Free Lane Traveling issued to Sunahara et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,663,548 for Vehicle Carried Unit for Automatic Toll-Paying Systems And Automatic Toll-Receiving Apparatus issued to Hayashi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,996 for Toll Collection System issued to Eguchi et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,702 for Apparatus For Transmitting Information For Vehicle issued to Hayashi et al. Many recent toll collecting systems use an on-board unit installed in the vehicle for toll collection without stopping the vehicle at the toll gate by way of radio communication equipment installed at the entrance/exit toll gate. However, I have noted that the on-board unit must be installed in the vehicle, and the efficiency of the toll gate lane is lowered if there are few vehicles equipped with the on-board units. Rather, toll collection efficiency can significantly be improved for both closed type and open type of toll collection systems if a central communication device is provided to effectively communicate with lane controllers, booth controllers and peripheral equipments connected to booth computers.